


visions rising, legion after legion (bring the unreal world too strangely near)

by blackkat



Series: HashiMada Drabbles [7]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Dimension Travel, Dreams, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Open to Interpretation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 06:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20110627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: It's a complete surprise to wake up with Hashirama’s name still on his lips.





	visions rising, legion after legion (bring the unreal world too strangely near)

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: In his final moments while slowly agonizing, Madara's last regrets is not telling Hashirama about his feelings. He'd never imagine waking up in an alternative universe in which he's married to Hashirama.

_Hashirama_, Madara thinks in the last moment of consciousness, even as the darkness crashes down around him. This is death, long overdue, and all Madara can think is that he _regrets_, that if he had the chance, if he had the _time_, he’d tell Hashirama everything, try harder to be someone he could actually love. Someone who didn’t turn his back on everything good in his life, _deserve_ Hashirama’s friendship, and he wishes but he’s _dying_—

It is, therefore, a complete surprise to wake up with Hashirama’s name still on his lips.

For a long, fraught moment, Madara stays frozen, staring at the sunlit wood around him, the wide shoji left open and leading out to a garden in the sunrise, still and lush. He’s warm, and the futon beneath him is soft, and there's a weight against his chest.

The sheer _confusion_ keeps Madara from wrenching away as the body in his arms shifts, resettles. Long silken hair drags over his bare arm, and there’s a soft breath against his skin, so foreign he can't quite believe it’s happened. Then, low and sleep-rough, a voice asks, “Madara?”

Hashirama. It has to be; Madara would know him half-dead, bleeding out, drugged. In any situation, he would recognize that voice, even if the tone of it is one he hasn’t heard in decades. Not anger, not disappointment, not hurt, but—

“Hashirama,” he says again, and the reality registers. Hashirama in his arms, twisted together on a futon in the sunshine, with nothing but peace in the air around them. “I—did I wake you?”

_It’s a dream_, he thinks with something like wonder. _Or this is heaven, and mistakes have been made_.

With a sleepy sound, Hashirama pushes up on an elbow, hair sliding across his bare chest, dark skin so warm Madara almost wants to protest the loss of it against him. but that smile on Hashirama’s face—that might be worth it, to see that. Sleepy, content, _loving_, and when Hashirama leans in to kiss him Madara decides that this _must_ be a dream, but he doesn’t care at all.

This is what he wanted, isn't it? This is the dream he’s been clinging to for so many years, the secret obsession he’s kept tucked away in his heart as he twisted Obito until he broke, played the whole world like a puppet.

“Nightmare?” Hashirama murmurs, right against his lips, and his dark eyes are soft in a way that makes Madara's chest feel like it’s been hollowed out and filled with fire. He swallows hard, hands closing around Hashirama’s shoulders in an involuntary jerk. Too tight, he thinks, but can't make himself let go, and Hashirama just kisses him again, sleep-lazy and off-center.

“The worst,” Madara says, voice cracking, and in a fit of madness—it’s all madness, all that deep, devouring desperation, the wild, unhinged certainty that he’s doing what he has to and the world can hang—he shoves Hashirama down hard, topples him onto the futon and pins him there, breathing ragged. Stares down, but there’s no alarm on Hashirama’s face, no fear, no recriminations. Just warmth, humor, and Madara can't take it. His expression twists, and he wants to pull away and run, wants to burrow into Hashirama’s skin and never let go.

Hashirama must see, because his smile softens, gentles, and he reaches up to drape strong arms around Madara's shoulders. “Madara?” he asks, and that tone is meant to soothe, but where it once drove Madara straight to anger, right now he can feel his heart twist in his chest. After he tried to attack Konoha, he’d been absolutely sure Hashirama would never care enough to use that tone with him again. “Would you like to tell me? I think one of my duties as your husband is telling you when your nightmares are ridiculous and won't ever come true.”

_Husband_. The word jars through Madara's body, lightning in his veins and a vise around his heart. His breath hitches, and he lets himself fall forward, burying his face in Hashirama’s hair. Inhales the scent of him, green and growth and something warm, and feels his eyes burn with tears.

“You hated me,” he rasps, and if he could physically meld their bodies together, he would. Settles, instead, for pressing his lips to the fluttering pulse in Hashirama’s throat, desperately greedy for that little touch of skin. It’s dangerous, because all he wants then is more, and he drags his hands up Hashirama’s arms, then down his sides, and gets a hitched breath, a shift. Hashirama laughs in his ear, breathless, and one leg slides over Madara's hip, holding him close.

“Never,” Hashirama murmurs, a promise, and Madara sets his teeth to that perfect dark throat.

“I love you,” he says, a confession meant for this Hashirama, for the one he betrayed, for every Hashirama in every dream and every universe. Madara would love any of them with this same burning fervor, so terrifyingly close to hatred. He clutches at Hashirama, marks his skin and wishes with a covetous desperation that the signs of him will never fade from Hashirama’s skin.

Hashirama’s fingers tangle in his hair, and the tremble of a warm laugh is like electricity against his skin. “I love you too, Madara,” he says, and if this is a dream, it’s the sweetest one Madara has ever had.

He leans up, kisses Hashirama fierce and fervent, steals the air from his lungs, and swears he’s not going to let him up until he’s burned an imprint of himself right into Hashirama’s soul.


End file.
